Greek Aljamiado

Greek Aljamiado refers to a tradition that existed prior to the 20th century of writing Greek language in the Arabic script. The term Aljamiado is a borrowing from Romance languages such as Spanish, for which a similar tradition existed. Although less widespread and less studied than these counterparts, Greek Aljamiado has a long and diverse tradition as well, as far back as the 13th century, with poems written Jalal al-Din Rumi and his son Sultan Walad in Greek but in Arabic script.

This tradition existed among some Greek Muslims from Crete as well as Epirote Muslims in Ioannina who wrote their Cretan Greek in the Arabic alphabet. It also existed among Arab Greek Orthodox Christians in the Levant (Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine) for writing of liturgical texts.

The inverse of this tradition existed among Greek orthodox Christian Karamanli Turks, who use the Greek alphabet for writing of their Turkish dialect.